WordPress 2.5, Things You Must Know

WordPress 2.5 have been officially released a few days ago and this is the first time I provide my personal take on it and sharing things You Must Know before doing the upgrade!

I have to admit – the core blog functionality is great. It takes some time to get used to new interface and has One Big Issue with Media Upload (which I’ll explain how to fix in this article) but overall I can actually see that it is faster, better and performs like a champ! And if you don’t use ANY plugin or have verified that ALL plugins you use are compatible – go ahead and upgrade. Otherwise read this article…

I don’t like to be a negative guy but what can I do when a huge issue introduced with upgrade. At first I thought it was just me but then a little search have shown that many people on shared hosting run into this one. Here is screenshot of the problem…

As you can see in image above WordPress 2.5 introduced a new functionality (gallery) and have changed the way media upload is done. That includes images or any other files you might have. If it works on your host – Great! Because now you have an ability to upload multiple files, create gallery and much more, I recommend you watch the screencast by Matt on this feature…

And what if you are one of the people who get the screen shown above? I have seen several solution to this presented and while many of them work – it is possible it creates a securoty issue, am not a security expert and would need a second opinion on this one. But here is the fix:

Open .htaccess file in the root of your blog

Add this line to your .htaccess file on new line: SecFilterEngine Off

Save the file and test your Media Upload now.

Now that should address the only issue with the core I have found so far. Also I have fully tested and verified that WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin (latest version 1.1) works almost flawlessly and will upgrade your core to 2.5!

But let’s not forget about the plugins!

I personally rely on plugins to improve my blog functionality and provide interactivity to my blog and Not Willing to work without them! Community have created a database of the plugins that work with 2.5 and fail and I recommend that you check your personal list against it before doing upgrade.

I have found quite a few plugins that I use and they don’t work as well as expected. While majority of them are well supported by developers – it takes time for them to release update and I recommend you get to know people who create these nice little script you use on your blog daily without thinking!

See how they progress with updates, encourage them, perhaps make a small donation to help them with motivation . I’m sure they will appreciate the attention! But whatever you do – make sure that all your plugins are ready for 2.5 or at least make a determination that you can live without some of them!

I upgraded one of my blogs, but it was very bare bones, with only a couple of plug-ins running.

I have a “test” subdomain that I use when I want to edit themes. I think I’m just going to upload all of the plugins from my “primary” blogs to that site, activate them, then see what happens when I upgrade.

Yeah, testing with major upgrade is a must. I use numerous plugins and as it stands right now – 3 of them incompatible with 2.5 and that is tested. Good thing is that I know author work on them :D. I guess it always pays to use plugins that are well supported. I have upgraded about 5 of my smaller blogs to 2.5 and only one with an issue due to plugin not being compatible.

One thing you should all know is that the so called new editor in 2.5 is, well, rubbish and that’s being kind and an understatement.

The worst part about it is that it still messes with your code, ripping out whole amounts of it, even after you’ve saved the post. (If you checkout the WP forums you’ll find a ton of flak about this, it seems an unbelievable SNAFU for them to make.))

Thankfully a new compatible version of Tiny MCE Advanced has already been released which will do all the things the WP 2.5 editor should have done in the first place.

Having said all that, after using it for a week, I do find it to be a huge improvement over the previous version, but only because all of my plugins are now working.

As has been said above, test first before upgrading, and for god’s sake make sure you do a data backup and copy before upgrading, otherwise you won;t be able to revert back to your previous version as 2.5 does a major dB update when you install it.

I purchased your system a while ago and finally got some time to set it up today. I am in step 2 (wordpress set up). But there was a new version of wordpress 2.5. Should I download it and install it? Or should I just ignore the upgrade? Please help me. If you recommend upgrade to version 2.5, please tell me how to install it. I have no clue at all. Thanks. =)

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